


from the beginning

by cloudycats



Category: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-10-14 04:57:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17502008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudycats/pseuds/cloudycats
Summary: Aaron gets bitten by a spider.  He's on the lookout for swelling, so he misses the other symptoms until it's a little too late for backsies.





	1. Chapter 1

Aaron gets bitten by a spider.

He's on the lookout for swelling, so he misses the other symptoms. The evening after – he slept through the day, like he tends to – strange things happen, but then he gets called in to work and he finds other issues to put his attention to. His temples buzz with what isn't quite a headache.

He clashes with Spider-Man on the wall of the collider's room. It's hard to hear much over Octavius' machine. The air thrums. The whole room trembles as the moving parts shift into place. It hasn't even started and pedestrians can probably feel it in the city above.

Somehow, Spider-Man still senses Prowler's approach. The hero breaks off from trying to jam the flash drive into the override panel in order to meet him.

Spider-Man slips aside from the first blow – and, if life was a film, this moment would be the scratch on the disc. The hole shattered out of the window, the dead squirrel in the grass, the discrepancy that glares so vividly the rest of the world can only warp around it and become its shadow.

The collider's roar dulls against the sudden clarity of Prowler's thoughts. Spider-Man's eyes widen as he dodges, and Prowler immediately knows the reason for it, not an ounce of room in his mind for doubt. He doesn't want to know. He doesn't understand why he does, or why an emotion he's forgotten exists is suddenly jockeying for control against the cool ruthlessness he adopts as the Prowler. The wall shudders under his feet and breaks his footing. He's jarred out of the flow of combat to brace – but the fall never comes. He's still where he was, attached firmly to the vertical surface, gravity a distant concern, the source of the disruption before him.

The scene skips back into motion. He kicks Spider-Man, activating his boot as the hit connects, and the hero is knocked out into the air and tumbles a good few yards before he sends a web upwards. Prowler hurries out of the way. The string latches onto the panel above him, and Spider-Man hits the wall in a crouch.

This would be the time to follow up. Spider-Man expects him to. He expects Spider-Man to. They're on opposite sides of the line Kingpin drew in the sand. The fight won't stop like this a second time, once it starts again.

Prowler came in fresh, but Spider-Man spent some time before this infiltrating the facility, then fighting Green Goblin. Prowler doesn't know if he's bruised at all – the exact extent of Spider-Man's durability is a mystery; he's certainly been injured before, but no one knows how much force it would take to put him down and keep him there. He's tired now, though. Not to any pressing extent, but enough that he's conserving energy and using the unexpected lull as a breather as much as anything else. He's expecting a long haul. Whatever comes next, he's going to try to stall to get his wind back.

Prowler has no reason to let him. The collider is still powering up around them, steady and implacable, every second delayed bringing it closer to activation, but dragging proceedings out still benefits Spider-Man more than it does Prowler. Letting the hero improvise a plan is a terrible risk. Spider-Man only needs one clear shot. Prowler has to stop him from interfering for at least several minutes, if Octavius's estimates turn out to be accurate.

Prowler curls a hand, claws brushing his palm. Something like restlessness. He's not used to the vertical perspective. A stubborn part of his brain insists that he's taller than Spider-Man simply because Spider-Man is crouching.

He doesn't say anything. Won't say anything. Talking is... exhausting, as Prowler. The costume's just a job, in the end, if one with some pretty off-putting terms in the contract, and he's paid all the same regardless of whether or not he makes conversation with people he doesn't like. Over the years, the reticence has settled into more than habit. He doesn't usually speak outside the parameters of the mission, and even during assignments he prefers simple visual signals if possible. Spider-Man will have to initiate, unless he wants to go back to fighting already.

Prowler thinks Spider-Man has enough experience with him to guess that's the case. At the very least, the hero milks a few more seconds out of the wait than would probably be wise against any other opponent, and he spares another moment to glance past Prowler to the distant Green Goblin before focusing back on the more immediate issue. Finally, he says, not as a question, “How.”

How come Prowler felt as if it was Jeff on the other end of his claws? Jeff from half a lifetime ago, before he pulled himself out of the mire with Rio's help, before Aaron chose to drown rather than follow. There was a time when Aaron could peg Jeff's thoughts almost as easily as if they were his own, when Jeff laughed and Aaron knew that as the sound of someone who would follow him without question into the deepest pit of Hell for the sole purpose of dragging him right back out. There was a time when that was true. Though even Aaron will admit that perhaps it's for the better that it's not true anymore.

That time is not now. That person was not Spider-Man. So how did kicking the hero feel like a betrayal?

The disorientating, gut-wrenching flood of sentiment that swamped him earlier has ebbed, retreating as quickly as it arrived – but the shade lingers. He remembers how it felt. It might have been a one-time thing, but if not... he's not keen to experience it again.

“Alchemax,” Spider-Man says, voice pitched low. This isn't battle banter. He's not adding flair for the peanut gallery or trying to get a rise out of his opponent. “Was it on purpose? Are you guys making more spiders?”

Prowler's feet are stuck to the soles of his boots. He shakes his head just once, slightly, a visual counterpart to Spider-Man's whisper.

“Anyone in the city, and it was _you_. Only way it might be worse is if you were Norman. I don't want to find out if a spider can even get its fangs through Norman's skin. Or Kingpin. That would suck.”

Spider-Man's recovered enough by now, going off his lighter breathing, but he still isn't moving. Prowler realizes then that he isn't stalling to come up with a plan to destroy the collider. He's stalling to come up with a plan to destroy the collider _without fighting Prowler_. Somehow, avoiding combat with him has become a priority on the same level as keeping New York from collapsing into a black hole.

Not that that will happen. There is a risk, yes, a single-digit percentage that's still a little worrying because it's a one in twenty chance that a _black hole_ will form under the city where Aaron's family lives. But Octavius won't let that happen. Kingpin might have paid for the project, but Octavius is the one who built it from the inside out. If this trial turns out to be the one time in twenty, she'll shut things down, whatever he says. She can't do science anymore if she's dead. Or, well, she can't do science anymore if all her atoms have been crushed into oblivion.

Is that worth telling Spider-Man about? If he's here just about the possible collateral damage....

Prowler's just on the verge of saying something when Spider-Man groans. “Norman,” he sighs, and then he's swinging upwards, racing the green behemoth that flies past Prowler a moment later.

Prowler might have stayed there until the collider finished its work, watching from the sidelines as Spider-Man and Green Goblin put each other through their paces, if a voice didn't ring out over the intercom. One word, tinged with anger. Prowler forces the uneasiness down and hurries to join his coworker.

Against either one of them, Spider-Man stands a reasonable chance of victory, but not against both. It doesn't help his case that Prowler is powering through hits that would have normally have at least made him flinch and hitting significantly harder than usual. The hero gets pinned down, escapes when the collider hits its stride and a chunk of falling masonry clocks Green Goblin upside the head, and then.

Well.

After, Prowler finds Spider-Man in the rubble without any trouble. The hero is near Green Goblin's still form. The explosion is still ringing in Prowler's ears, brightly colored spots blinking past his eyes, his bones brittle with the force of the blast. He feels very small, trudging through the destruction. He'd be a part of it if he was standing a few more feet in any direction.

Spider-Man looks even smaller.

As soon as he spots Prowler, he starts trying to push the debris off of himself. He doesn't manage that. He does manage to cough. “It could have been anyone,” he says. There's an undertone to his voice that Prowler has heard before, frequently, but never from this man. He's clutching the flash drive in the one hand not trapped. It's meaningless now.

Prowler leans down to take it anyway. There's resistance. Spider-Man's chest is moving, though the rise and fall is shallow. A visible blue eye fixes on the lenses of Prowler's mask.

Then the hero's hand relaxes, and Prowler steps back with the USB. He isn't quite sure why he slips it into a pocket on his belt. There's no reason not to, he supposes.

There are a lot of reasons not to help Spider-Man up. Somehow, though, he feels the need to be certain. He runs down the list: one – Kingpin's no doubt already mad at Prowler, and letting Spider-Man get away might very well mean Prowler's life; two –

Why go to two? The first one's more than enough on its own. He likes breathing.

(Two – there was a slip-up, a while back, and then the mercenary called Prowler was no longer a mercenary. Being a supervillain for hire is a little like living in a fairy tale. Once someone invokes your true name, you're sort of stuck with them.)

He doesn't turn as the footsteps and voices approach from behind. Kingpin moves past him, and Spider-Man finally wrenches his gaze away from Prowler. Kingpin makes a joke. Laughs, if it can be called that. Prowler can't see his expression, but he's familiar enough with his moods to know he's seething.

Spider-Man's uncharacteristically quiet in the face of the enemy. He responds to Kingpin – particularly when Kingpin yanks off the mask – but there's no effort made to keep the other man talking.

As the dust settles around them, Kingpin says, “Get him out of there.”

A bevy of less well-paid mooks leaps immediately to the task. “Watch it,” Kingpin orders when one of them shifts a heavy rock and Spider-Man makes a strangled, rattling noise.

“Somehow I don't think you're going to let me off at a hospital,” Spider-Man says.

“Good. It can be a surprise.” Spider-Man relies too heavily on the mask; without it shielding him, his expressions are too easy to read. Prowler hears the grin in Kingpin's voice as he goes on, “You'll get the best medical assistance in the state. It won't be at a proper hospital, sorry to say. The doctors might need to take some samples, so they can get a better idea how to fix you. That'd be difficult with all the city's eyes on them. But you won't die tonight, Spider-Man.”

A pause. To savor the victory, maybe. Prowler has an idea of what's coming next: theatrics. He doesn't look away from Spider-Man as Kingpin adds, all false levity gone, “I can't say the same for your family.”

“ _No_.” With effort, Spider-Man props himself up on his elbows. He's pale. It might all be from the injury. “I don't think I've mentioned it before, but I'm an orphan. Car accident years ago. I have a scar from it on my chin.”

“Sure.”

Kingpin's turning away, but Spider-Man's next words bring him to a halt. “Don't you want to know what I saw?” It comes out in a rush, and he doesn't wait for an answer. “They're gone, Kingpin. You can't bring them back.”

The silence stretches on.

Kingpin curls his fists. Breathes in long and deep.

Eventually, he raises a hand, and he motions for the frozen henchmen to keep going.

“Prowler,” he says, and starts on his way back. There are already other workers sifting through the wreckage, cataloging the damage. As soon as the room's cleared, Kingpin will no doubt want the collider running again. A few days until then. “What were you doing?”

“Migraine.”

Kingpin stops in his tracks to stare at him. But Prowler's never lied to him, nor demonstrated anything remotely approaching a sense of humor. The counterpart to crying wolf. Prowler stands his ground.

“Will it happen again?”

“No, sir.”

“Holding you to it.” Kingpin picks up his stride again. “Once I know who that guy is, I'm putting you on the job.” He smiles. “Make it a car crash.”


	2. Chapter 2

Peter Parker. Twenty-six. Graduate student at ESU. An orphan, surprisingly, though not due to input from any automobiles. After his parents vanished when he was young, he went to live with his aunt and uncle. His uncle passed away at about the same time as Spider-Man's first appearance, so now there's only an aunt.

And a fiancee, but Prowler's more concerned with the aunt – Octavius took one look at the name “May Parker” and started to grin.

He makes it home early in the morning as the first dregs of washed-out light are seeping over the skyline. First things he does are to toss the costume into a tub of soapy water to wash by hand later, run diagnostics and stress checks on the equipment, and, once he's assured that everything's working smoothly, bury most of it in the back of the closet that is the only place in the apartment Miles doesn't go. Then he takes a shower. There was enough debris that the suit couldn't keep all of it out. He's covered in dust.

His hand gets caught on the soap and doesn't come free before half the bar melts down the drain. As he's getting out, his feet cling to the mat and he has to wait three minutes before he can put pants on.

He can't tell what makes it happen. It's certainly not voluntary, like Spider-Man's is. Maybe the control comes later.

Later. He can't put off thinking about that for much longer.

He puts his gloves and boots on (since evidently he can't stick through metal), turns on the news, and putters over to the kitchen to make dinner. Breakfast. Whatever garlic spaghetti and meatballs is.

It has to be May Parker first. The death of Spider-Man's fiancee right after Spider-Man's disappearance might tip her off, and, from the sound of it, he should try to keep every advantage he has against her. Especially since Kingpin set a condition.

God, Spider-Man could have said _anything_ else.

It wasn't on purpose, Aaron's sure of that. The hero's never struck him as the type to taunt an enemy using their family's death. Most likely Spider-Man just ran with the first cause of death that came to mind, forgetting that it was the only one Kingpin would take offense at.

It's astonishingly difficult to kill someone via car crash without knowing their schedule – it's not like you can just camp a van outside their front door – and Aaron doesn't have much time to do reconnaissance with. Spider-Man's too difficult to contain. Unless Kingpin comes back to his senses – unlikely – and kills him while the opportunity exists, he'll escape as soon as he's recovered enough for it, and then Aaron will have to contend with him as well.

That's part of the point. Aaron has his specializations, none of them are the circus act that Kingpin's calling for, and Kingpin knew as much when he gave the order. This is punishment.

There are ways around it still. He can kill May Parker, set up an unrelated car crash, and use it to disguise the real cause of death. He's already halfway through mapping out the operation in his head when a soft scraping noise has him looking down.

His palm got stuck to the release for the claws, and the pot just acquired four thin, pale scars on its handle. Carefully, he lets go. “I don't want to do this,” he says, and he understands then how Kingpin bought the migraine excuse so quickly. Even to his own ears, he sounds stricken.

It comes down to the brainwashing effect from the spider bite. Aaron _knows_ that. Before last night he had no particular feelings towards Spider-Man. Appreciated the guy's dedication, sure, but New York has lasted this long without him and won't fall apart without him. Aaron was never attached to him. But apparently like calls to like where radioactive spiders are concerned, and Aaron's having a difficult time now detaching _Spider-Man_ from _family_.

Nothing's really changed. If it comes down to it, Aaron still wouldn't hesitate to kill Spider-Man himself. It's just that he'd regret the act for the rest of his life – an unshakable, bone-deep, aching regret that... he can't imagine the full extent of what it would do to him. Doesn't want to.

He can still kill Spider-Man, but – not to put too fine a point on it – it might be the last thing he ever does. While the thought of going after Spider-Man's loved ones doesn't hit with quite the same sort of impact, the moment he pictures Peter Parker's expression when he hears the news....

Aaron's hand is _shaking_. “Come on,” he mutters, trying for exasperated. He doesn't pull it off. Not even close. “Really?”

He eats dinner on the couch, trying to distract himself with the news on the television and the cat videos on his phone. One of the gloves comes off – the phone's screen doesn't take metal as input – and he gets to type two hundred H's into the text box when his finger sticks to the keyboard.

He's pulled out of whatever it is he's doing at a phrase from the news anchor. “At 11:30 last night....” When the collider activated. Aaron saw some of the collateral effects on the way home, the jagged mess of fused metal a street light became, shopfront displays knocked over behind the glass – but he must have missed the worst of it by a fair margin, because the anchor's talking over photos of cracked pavement, windows shaken from their frames, a traffic light so mangled from contact with other realities that it could be mistaken for a fence and is physically blocking its entire intersection. All in all, the damage will cost the city a pretty penny to repair. There were a few human injuries, too, but not many worth hospitalizing over.

“Except,” the anchor adds uncomfortably, “for one middle school student whose feet and lower legs developed what can best be described as... flesh tumors. It seems to be similar to a phenomenon that's mostly affected inorganic features around the city.”

Fun.

It's not too much worse than what Aaron was told to expect. The fact that it's being equated to a major natural disaster is definitely a little concerning, though, so he calls up Miles to check in.

“Uncle Aaron?” His nephew sounds undamaged, if surprised. “You okay?”

Aaron raises an eyebrow. “Yeah. I'm alright. Why are you whispering?”

“Why are you calling at 5:42 in the morning?”

He snorts, and it turns into a smile that claws its way from past the wired tension under his ribs. He says, sliding an arm over the couch's back, “You slept through an earthquake.”

Silence on the other end, nearly palpable. Then, blearily: “A _what_? In New York!? Was it bad?”

“I only saw it on the news.”

“Earthquake, earthquake,” Miles mutters. A thud – him jumping down from the top bunk he said he has – and then rustling. Aaron's patient, listening to the little sounds of Miles waking up. There's nothing else in the world Aaron would rather be doing. “Magnitude five! That's bad.”

“Might be a good thing to call your parents.”

“Oh! Yeah, I have to do that. It's weird, our room looks completely fine. 'Investigators are looking into human factors' – an artificial earthquake? Is that – yeah those are a thing,” Miles says. “I'm okay, Uncle Aaron. I'm going to hang up so I can call my parents.”

“Alright,” Aaron says, and then, “Kid.”

“Hm?”

Aaron looks up at the ceiling and thinks about how he's going to feel like dirt in a day, or an hour, or a minute. It's not enough to stop him. “You know I love you, right?”

When Miles responds seconds later, he definitely sounds defensive. “Yeah.” _Teenagers._ Aaron has to quirk a faint smile.

Miles is a good kid. Makes Aaron at any age look like trash in comparison. “Talk to you later,” Aaron tells his nephew, and then he hangs up before he says anything else that'll make him regret existing. He stays still for a long moment afterwards, waiting for anything, but the expected guilt doesn't make its appearance yet. He just feels numb.

The final question's honestly a simple one. Only two answers: actual family or spider family. It's not really a choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaron: _teenagers_  
>  Miles: _adults_


End file.
